


Into that good night

by eleanor_lavish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dark, M/M, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:49:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Eames spends more time on airplanes than the ground these days.  If he slowed down enough to think about things, he'd admit he was running, but he somehow always ends up back here, at Cobb's side, and at Arthur's. </i>  Or, the Inception job does not quite go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into that good night

It's only six months from the disastrous end of the Fisher job that the doctors finally say there is nothing left of Dominic Cobb. Brain function is at zero, they explain, holding up ribbons of paper from the EKG, the most recent pictures of the inside of Cobb's head. _Scrambled eggs_, Eames thinks to himself grimly, and looks down at the body of his friend, lying still and sallow in his hospital bed. There are no guards at the door; since Cobb was never formally arrested, his return to the states in a coma was a minor paperwork nightmare for the district attorney in Los Angeles, especially since his body mysteriously appeared in the emergency room of said hospital with no indication of how he'd arrived.

Eames tries not to think about that day too much, of the terror he felt when they all woke up on the plane save Cobb and Saito, their bodies still and peaceful even after the drugs wore off. It was a nightmare to figure out a plan, especially with Fisher mere feet away, but they managed to get Cobb off the plane, and the stewardess played her part well. Saito was a lost cause to them, and they cut ties even as they mourned. Eames sent flowers to his hospital room, thinks Ariadne did as well, but they all pledged their allegiance to Cobb. They worked to try and pull him out of his sleep for a week before each admitting they didn't want to follow Cobb's rabbit down that hole and Arthur and Eames drove him grimly to the best hospital in the city.

They all split up after that - Yusuf back to his basement laboratories, Ariadne back to Paris to try and forget, though Eames knows she never will, hopes she can learn how to walk the lines between living and dreaming better than the rest of them.

Eames looks up to see Arthur's calm, smooth countenance across from him. He's as crisp as ever, moreso if that's possible, even if the set of his jaw seems strained; he's been a perfect soldier since their return, looking in on Dom and Mal's children, taking small research jobs but never straying far from LA and Cobb. Eames spends more time on airplanes than the ground these days. If he slowed down enough to think about things, he'd admit he was running, but he somehow always ends up back here, at Cobb's side, and at Arthur's.

The doctors leave, their faces lined with sadness and apology. Eames curls his hands into fists at his side. Arthur places his hand over Cobb's and squeezes tightly. There is no sound in the room, no machines whirring to keep Cobb alive. His body is structurally sound, a well-build piece of architecture, still standing after all the life inside has been snuffed out, like the castles dotting the countryside of Eames' youth. Arthur pulls a gun from his inside pocket, a silencer already screwed on to the end, and Eames is only startled to discover that he's not surprised at all. This is how they do it, he thinks. This is how they move from one place to the next. This is how they all keep each other alive, keep this messy business as painless as possible. Arthur and Cobb and Eames have all shot each other countless times over the years, to wake each other up from their respective nightmares. And now Cobb is already dead, and all Arthur can do is pull the trigger and pray that Cobb wakes up somewhere else, somewhere better, somewhere Mal will be waiting for him.

He bets that Arthur is not the praying type.

They make it to the parking garage quickly; no one will be after them yet, and he doubts they will be after them at all. Arthur just cleanly killed a man no one wanted, no one but two small children who will grow up to barely remember him, and a ragtag group of liars and thieves. And killers. Eames adds that to his list.

Arthur is stoic through all of it, and Eames is sadly unsurprised by that as well. Arthur has been perfect in everything he does since the first time they met, and Eames has found it fascinating, frustrating and erotic in turn. For a long time, Eames has found it comforting, Arthur's continued existence as a walking, breathing machine, but today he waits, watches, because this is more than any human being could possibly bear. Sure enough...

Eames hears it before he sees it, a high unearthly whine that seems to emanate from all of Arthur at once. Eames freezes in his tracks, eyes tracking Arthur as he stumbles a step, reaches out into nothingness with unsteady hands, his eyes closing tight as if against a wave of pain. Arthur makes another sound, louder, lower, growing until the underground lot echoes with the sound of pure anguish, and that is enough to get Eames to move forward, to snake his arm around Arthur's waist and hold on tight even as Arthur thrashes against him, yelling still, pushing, _punching_, even as Arthur's knees give out as though his strings had been cut, and Eames lowers them both to the ground. He holds on through Arthur's sobs, hot tears seeping through Eames' collar. He pets Arthur's hair, rocks him like a child. He makes soothing sounds, but doesn't try to talk; Arthur wouldn't be able to understand him anyway. He's lost in his own grief, the way Dom was after Mal.

He waits until the sobs have turned to small, gasping hiccups against his chest before pulling back enough to smooth Arthur's hair off his forehead. "We can't stay here," he says gently and Arthur blinks at him, taking a moment to parse the words. His eyes are red and swollen, his cheeks high with color. He looks radiantly human in all his misery and Eames feels his heart seize up in his chest. "Come on," he says, and pulls Arthur to his feet and toward the car, always with one hand on his back, his elbow.

"Where are we going?" Arthur asks dully as they pull out of the garage. He looks out the window, but his eyes are still unfocused. Eames doesn't have to wonder what he sees.

"I'm taking you home, darling," Eames says, and Arthur closes his eyes.

Eames turns off the highway and on to the rolling canyon hills, winding their way down to the ocean below. Arthur frowns as he blinks his eyes open. "Eames, where - "

"I said I was taking you home. I didn't say yours," Eames replies. He tries for a smirk, but his voice betrays his own frayed emotions.

"Eames," Arthur says, but it's more a sigh, defeated and deflated. He's silent for a long moment. "I'm not going to do something stupid," he says quietly.

"No, no, you're not the type to put a gun in your mouth, Arthur," Eames says, less sarcastic than usual, but with more bite. "You'll just go home and sit and blank out everything until you've built that wall back up, higher and thicker than ever. Maybe you'll add a turret or two for good measure." He glances over to see Arthur sitting straighter in his seat already, his fingers pulling at his cuffs, smoothing down his shirt front, putting everything back in place. He shifts gears a little to fast, jerking the car forward so that Arthur is forced to slam his hands into the dash. Arthur shoots him a warning glare. Eames takes the next turn with a modicum of caution.

"I'm not going to leave you alone," Eames says a few minutes later, and Arthur's head jerks up like he's been caught. Eames tightens his fingers on the steering wheel. "I'm not, and you know I'm a tenacious bastard. I'm going to make your life a living hell, darling. I'm going to kick down every brick of that wall you put up, I'm going to stand in front of you and remind you of everything in your life you'd like to forget."

"Why?" Arthur asks, his voice strangled, and Eames smiles almost cruelly.

"Because this is it. This is what being a human being is all about. This is what makes us _real_," he adds, and he knows without looking that Arthur's hand is covering the pocket where his totem sits. Arthur stays silent, and Eames continues, softer this time. "This is the worst part of it, love. But this is the part where, if you can survive it, you can have all of it. All the rest."

"I don't - " Arthur starts. "What if I don't want it?"

"Then fuck you," Eames says blithely. "Mal, Cobb, now you. None of you want to live in the real world because the real world is _hard_ and messy and hurts like hell. Cobb didn't -," he starts, but he doesn't finish it with the unspoken words they all think but never say. _He chose not to come back._ Arthur is stock still beside him and Eames thinks maybe he went too far. "This is the gift we're given, Arthur. This is the life we have. And if you build a castle around your heart, you'll never get to have any of it, not ever. You'll lose any part of you that I might have ever liked. Every petty, silly, haughty, vain part of you that makes you uniquely _Arthur_."

Eames eases the car into a driveway and turns it off. They sit in near silence, Eames counting the seconds between Arthur's still-uneven breaths. "Come on," Eames says finally, and gets out of the car. Arthur follows after a heartbeat.

There is a path next to the house that leads down a steep narrow trail. At the bottom is rocky sand the color of charcoal, and a small strip of beach that is nearly deserted. It's mid-spring, and the water is still frigid when Eames strips his shoes and socks off, rolls his cuffs and wanders in to the surf. "Eames," Arthur calls to him, his voice muffled by the buffeting winds.

"Look," Eames shouts back over his shoulder and motions with his chin to the horizon. The sun is setting, gold and red against the horizon. It's the most shocking thing Eames has ever seen, huge and gorgeous and nearly incomprehensible in it's beauty, and yet it happens every day, like clockwork, infinite and perfect. "This is the real world, Arthur," he says. "How does it make you _feel_?"

Eames turns his face back into the wind, squinting against the sky, watching the patterns on the water turn from blue to navy to black. He can feel it when Arthur gets closer, the heat rising off his body like a furnace. For someone so cold, Arthur has always run extremely hot. They stand shoulder to shoulder long enough that Eames can't feel his toes anymore, and he digs them into the sand to try and keep their circulation.

Arthur takes a deep, shuddering breath beside him, and Eames lets the back of his fingers brush the back of Arthur's hand. "You don't want to lose this, do you, Arthur?" he asks, quiet enough that he's not sure Arthur will hear. Arthur's fingers brush his again, and his pinkie curls lightly around Eames', locking them together like a couple of schoolgirls. Eames barks out a tiny laugh, relief running through his body like a shot of adrenaline, and Arthur's hand turns, fitting his palm against Eames' and twining their fingers together. They don't look away from the horizon.

"You're crying," Arthur says to him, and Eames feels the coolness on his cheeks where the wind hits his face.

"I lost a friend today," is Eames' reply, and Arthur nods, his whole body going still as a stone. "Brick by brick, Arthur," Eames tells him. "I'll kick them all down."

"Okay," Arthur says, his voice tired but acquiescing. He gives Eames' hand a slight squeeze. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Quinn and Yeats who both read this and gave me some useful pointers and encouragement, even while blinking at me in confusion because this is SO not my wheelhouse. There is no romping, nor miscommunication, nor sex! This is one of the most nerve-wracking fics I've posted in a long while, because this fandom is glorious and expansive, and because I fear I've broken someone's favorite toys in writing it. But it was an idea that started in me very soon after I saw the movie and that wouldn't take no for an answer. I hope it is as cathartic to read for some of you as it was for me to write. &lt;3


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